ChaosRaven

You're right about that, the situation is certainly a lot different with English voices than with Japanese ones. I have yet to see a bigger VN fully voiced in English. I'm not even sure if I've ever read a shorter one with English voices. I heard Huniepop has English voices, even with semi H-scenes, but I never played that.

Ironically, this doesn't really have to be a problem. Just take books for example - people don't like to read? No problem, that's why we have audio books nowadays. Most VN's are very dialog focused and the bigger ones are usually fully voiced. So VN's are already quite modern in comparison since they have voices, images and music. And partly animated VN's get more and more common, closing the gap to animes more and more. On the flip side, the production cost get also higher and higher with that, making it more and more difficult to bring those qualities with an expansive story and not just a simple moege. Actually, many cut scenes of big budget RPG's already have lots of similarities with VN's. I recently played The Witcher 2 in preparation for the third one and it had cut scenes galore, and with sub titles activated, it almost felt like an action RPG VN hybrid. And many JRPG's seem to like the VN fromat for cut scenes as well, so I don't think it's a bad thing at all. I also heard a rumour that there's a special edition of Stein's Gate in the works that combines the animations of the anime with the VN. If that's true I'm really curious how that will work out. And if it'll works out I'd really like to have the same for Fate/Stay Night *drool*.

That's why I said 'almost always' and not just 'always'. Unfortunately, there are cases when developers think they still sell enough without delivering the best quality *cough* console ports *cough*. But for obvious reasons, that's still much more likely for developers with a tight budget than for ones with a bigger one. But if a developer with a rich budget really 'wants' a certain aspect to be good then it usually 'will' be good.

Well, an alternative Gaiden end would be at least better than nothing. Still, I've read the first Koihime three times and two routes of SKM, so that's five times roughly the same story. I therefore do hope the new routes bring some fresh air with them. Not sure if just more details will compensate for what an alternative route with a new story development would have brought. On the other hand, better one rich and detailed route that two half assed ones. At least there are some new characters that interest me like Rian and Suirei. Though the character designs of the new Raika and Pao aren't really my cup of tea. I hope they are better written than they look.

I think the connection is clear. Popularity means more sales and more sales means more money. And the quality of a product is almost always directly connected to the available money. High quality games like The Witcher 3 or GTA5 weren't just created with air and love. Just for The Witcher 3, there were more than a thousand people involved in development, design, QA and marketing. And currently, one of the main problems is that most VN developers have a very tight budget due to overall low sales. It's usually enough for some sprites, a few backgrounds and most important nowadays - the H-scenes. But a good story VN needs a lot more stuff drawn. A typical moege has maybe up to ten drawn characters. But good story VN's like Kara no Shojo, Fate, MuvLuv Alternative or G-Senjou can easily have 40 or even more. And you need a lot more event CG's for a good story VN than for a simple moege - and event CG's are expensive. And expansive story VN's usually also take a lot more than just a year to develop. There's a reason why games like Fate or MuvLuv Alternative with a huge amount of special effects and characters aren't done anymore. And it goes without saying that lots of money gives you the opportunity to hire the best artists, writers, translators and editors. TypeMoon would probably be the only VN developer with the possibility to make a REALLY high budget VN. Apparently they made about 2 billion dollars revenue with Fate Grand Order in two years. That makes even games like The Witcher 3 look like small fry in comparision. Unfortunately, TypeMoon doesn't exactly look like they ever want to go back to pure VN's again. So that's that. MangaGamer actually had an all ages site, but it was apparently used very rarely and they therefore decided to make Steam their All Ages store front.

Does the Go path has separate routes? Judging by this screenshot, at least the first game about Gi seems to have had routes, so I would have expected the same for the second one too. And a route where you can save Sheren would have been the most logical conclusion for me, and I would actually be a tiny little bit disappointed if there wouldn't be one. I mean, did they just copy/paste the original SKM Go route with just some slight differences? A history lesson is nice, but having the possibility to 'change' history is what really makes it interesting (as every Civ or Total War player would certainly agree). And Koihime is certainly not a piece of literature I'd expect 100% historic accuracy of. I actually found the various faction paths in the original Kohime and SKM too similar anyway, with always the same battles and events just from different perspectives, so some fresh air with different routes in the remakes would have been nice.

Depends, I'm personally pretty hyped for the Go version of Shin Koihime Kakumei. I'll buy it along with the Gi version from last year soon.

Oh, I wasn't aware that Nitroplus is going Clock Up nowadays. Guess, I still see them as Stein's Gate low ero company.

Am I the only one who finds it kind of odd, that the Nitroplus title Minikui Mojika no Ko is drawn by Clock Up's main artist Hamashima Shigeo and seems to be a real hard core nukige, while the actual Clock Up title Erewhon looks more like a story rich Nitroplus title and is drawn by Gentle Sasaki who never worked for them before?

I guess you mean this thread. So a rehash of all previous Key titles, with weak heroine routes but a strong true route. Still didn't really give me an idea about what's actually going on in the story.

Anyone know a bit more about the actual story of Summer Pockets? I just read the description and it sounds pretty much like Da Capo minus the tree. So it could be anything or nothing. Though from the looks it seems more in line with traditional school life nakiges like Clannad or Kanon and less fantasy action like Rewrite or Angel Beats.

So, I've finished Wagamama High Spec after what feels like an eternity. (Technically I already finished it a few weeks ago, but I was just too lazy to post.) I had already started this in October last year and at that time I finished the common at a rather good pace. The way the protagonist and especially his sister Toa end up in the student council together with Kaoruko and Ashe was actually quite funny. I think the VN did take a lot of inspirations from Yuzusoft, since the sprites are very dynamic with lots of expressions that even change multiple time during a sentence. It's certainly very well done. And the plot arc about Kouki being a secret manga writer and his connection to Kaoruko was also quite amusing. I also appreciate that the VN has several decent support characters with Yukari and Karen in particular being almost more interesting than the main cast. Unfortunately the VN also shares some weaknesses with Yuzusoft titles - the routes. While I had finished the common route comparably fast, it took me almost half a year to finish just Mihiro's and Ashe's route and I didn't really have the endurance for the others anymore. That's not to say they were bad, just very generic. Even the other heroines matter in the routes, so I guess it's fair to say that they were probably better than many other moege routes I've read. The main problem was more that I wasn't really 'interested' in the heroines. The character designs have a certain childish goofyness that make them cute and entertaining to watch, but lack the maturity I need to get the hots for a girl. It's also common problem of romance comedy's for me, that the comedy parts takes so much seriousness out of the plot that the actual romance is left without the necessary tension to captivate me. And a certain passion and tension are necessary ingredients for a good romance to me. And I guess partly to blame is also my ongoing moege slump, that makes it harder to stomach generic moege plots than in my earlier VN years. So in conclusion, I'd say this IS a well done romance comedy with decent art, lots of ero and likable characters. But besides that it doesn't offer a particular outstanding plot like Dracu Riot's action loaded vampire slapstick comedy for example. Heroine rating: Yukari > Karen > Mihiro = Toa > Ashe > Kaoruko Overall rating: 6.5/10 (feel free to add a grade if you're more into comedy and the cutesy character designs) I've also started Saku Saku, but already stalled it in favor of Hapymaher. To still throw in a few comments about it, it's major selling point is probably the art. The character designs are attractive, although some like Tina are probably a bit too cute for my taste. The artist also put a lot of effort into drawing background characters. I'm not sure when I had the last time the pleasure to see a class room FULL with different students. I think only some older titles like Clannad, Da Capo 2 and Shuffle put so much effort into it. Anyway, the plot in the common route is kind of ridiculous at first, but the VN kinda makes up for it a bit with some surprisingly good character interactions. Especially the protagonist is actually a rather cynical dude with dry humor. The plot gets somewhat more interesting when some Shinigami start to show up from nowhere. On the other hand, it declines so fast to comedic level that it looses almost its entire appeal. So far my plans are to play Ann's and Yuuri's route and skip the rest. Didn't progress in Hapymaher far enough yet to really give a qualified comment about it, but so far it's rather promising with its mysterious dream sequences and Maia a really unique and interesting character as mischivous villain. It's not without flaws though, since the pacing is rather slow and Saki kind of annoying. But I really like that it gives more serious vibes for a change and isn't just light comedy. And Yayoi is kind of super hot - her route will certainly be my first.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I was referring to in my last sentence. But it isn't particular difficult to be a famous character if the title of the series is its name and the series started decades ago. That doesn't necessarily make the character particularly good. For example, one of the most 'famous' heroines of anime and eroge is Igawa Asagi from Lilith's infamous Taimanin Asagai series. But that popularity doesn't make her a particular deep or interesting character either.

I wouldn't read too much into Rance's popularity just because it has lots of die hard fans in the west. Popularity is reflected in sales and if you take the Getchu sales ranking as a measurement then Rance doesn't really sell particularly better or worse than Alice Soft's other big titles in Japan. Rance so far had its peak in Japan with Sengoku Rance which got 7th rank in 2006. Before that Rance 6 didn't even reach the top 30. After that Rance Quest still got into the top ten with an 8th rank but was comfortably beaten by their inhouse competitor Daiteikoku which got to 3rd place (and which is more popular on VNDB too btw). Rance 9 then didn't even make the top ten anymore and ended up on 17th place. Even Ixseal from last year did better with a 13th rank and that's pretty much just a nukige. And the Rance remakes didn't even appear in the top 50. So the trend isn't looking that good for the Rance series. So, does Rance have a long history? Certainly yes! Does it sell well for Alice Soft? Yup! Especially since they don't have to pay for voices. Does it sell particularly better than their other big titles? Nope! It did sell better than Evenicle though, which finished on 33th place 2015. But the gap isn't that big anymore and the fact that it got a fan disc is usually an indicator for success. And beating Rance certainly isn't an unreachable goal. Eushully does it pretty much every year, since they almost always finish in the top five. It has yet to be seen how Rance 10 will do. Will the trend continue and it'll decline below the top 20, or will it fare better for a change? Ratings on VNDB are pretty good even if you subtract the Rance fanboy bonus, so I wouldn't be suprised if it would reach the top ten this year. It'll be beaten by Eushully like always though. Though considering that Fuukan no Grasesta has probably the worst character designs I've ever seen in an Eushully title, I wouldn't even be suprised if it would end up for once below Rance. But while I could imagine Evenicle getting as popular as a series as Rance too, I don't think there will be any 'character hype' around the protagonist like in Rance's case. I didn't hear about anything that would make him stand out anyway.

I was surprised that you could keep that up so long anyway. Even for a fast reader, VN's and especially slice of life ones are a considerably time commitment. Only reading what you want at your own pace and without pressure will make you enjoy the medium much more. And I know that it sounds incredibly cheap and wiseassy now, but you should try to balance your life more for a more healthy life style. If you're out of your twenties, the body tends to be not so forgiving anymore. But a bit more healthy food and some excercise can work wonders.

Key's success was always strongly connected to their animes. And the quality of their animes has considerably gone down for whatever reason. The last good one was Angel Beats, and even that one is almost 10 years ago now. I didn't watch the Rewrite anime, but apparently it was pretty bad. I watched Charlotte which was better received, but it only showed glimmers of Key's past glory and was filled to the brink with completely out of place gore. Their other problem is that they had the biggest success in the VN genre by inventing the classic school life nakige. But nowadays the VN market is oversaturated with those kind of VN's. There are very strong competitors with good art, decent writers (for that kind of VN), and last but not least... no problem with ero scenes. It's therefore very difficult for Key to stand out amongst those anymore. I think they could land a hit if they tried something like Rewrite again. Although I wasn't the biggest fan of it, it was at least a unique work that was more than just a simple school life nakige and went a bit more into direction of Type-Moon's Fate with some more mystery and action orientated themes. The Angel Beats VN was probably the first VN for Key that kind of flopped (for their standards). Can't judge their new Summer Pockets yet, but so far it looks very generic. And without a successful anime, I don't think they'll do much better with their western VN releases than the other competitors.

He's pretty close to Kyouko in KnS2. She also had a route in the first one. IMHO Reiji's liaison with Toko always felt more like an affair than true love anyway...

MangaGamer should rename themselves to RanceGamer since it's almost everything they're doing now. It's almost magical how pretty much every Alice Soft title that what would interest me like Daiteikoku, Pascha3, Tsumamigui3 or even Oyako Rankan is ignored just to be able to bring even more Rance titles to the west. Must be great being a Rance fan, since MG seems to be exclusively dedicated to them now. Well, I guess that means going back to the text hooker now, nothing to see here. Man, what a disappointing AX.

Okay, so you're saying I'm not allowed to rate a VN if I didn't do a full and extensive x-page review about it first. Which would also require me to fully read the VN to the end first - a VN I consider crap and being forced to read it to the end would bring me incredible amounts of mental torture. Furthermore, I'm also not allowed to criticize anything which was already mentioned in the description because it has 'immunity against criticism'. And if I'm just watching a random movie in TV or cinema or make an impulse buy of a video, VN or book that just looks interesting, I'm not allowed to criticize it at all since I didn't read the description first or did otherwise exhaustive research about it. And if I did, I'm not allowed to criticize it since I was 'informed' about it before. Well, that's just great! I guess you should also tell that to the VNDB admins, so they can delete every vote which isn't backed by an exhaustive full review about it, because it's misleading information that might lead to false expectations. That would probably mean deleting roughly about 99.999 % of all votes on VNDB. I'm sure the VNDB admins will be absolutely exited about it - who wouldn't agree to clean up the whole voting mess on VNDB?! I can't await to see their reaction.

First, this wasn't a review, just my impression. Second, I also wrote I could have lived with it if the rest was better - which wasn't the case. And you can still make a decent story even for such a situation - which they did not. I didn't read the description completely, my mistake - but most of the description makes you believe it's at least a semi-serious zombie story and not just an abuse festival for a scum protagonist. And I don't think I have to ask you for permission to write a comment with my impression for a VN. I think it's not forbidden to read a VN without having read the full desription or having missed a detail. I also wrote that the zombie apocalypse wasn't just boring because of the protagonist not being attacked, but also because of other things like just looking at empty backgrounds the whole time even if there should be zombies everywhere. But I guess you were so eager to write your flame post that you 'missed that detail'.

Yeah, I missed that part because I didn't read the description thoroughly. And I deeply regret it. Though I might still have tried it, since I didn't really expect the setting to be just a facade to give a scum protagonist his abuse paradise. I should have known better - eroge + zombies can just lead to some crappy fetish hentai.

Picked it up and gave it a try since I was kinda curious how it'll turn out. But unfortunately, so far it seems to be pretty bad. What was I expecting: Some kind of a highschool of the dead scenario of a group of students, working together to fend of a bunch of zombies. What did I get: A protagonist who isn't even in danger because the zombies don't attack him. That makes the whole situation kind of dull since the whole thrill of danger is missing. And in most cases you don't even see any zombies since they apparently didn't have the budget to draw any sprites for them. Although there are some sparse (badly drawn) event CG's with some, most screens are empty. In short, it's probably the most boring zombie apokalypse I've ever seen. But okay, I guess could still live with that if the rest would be at least okay. But unfortunately, the even bigger problem is that the protagonist is pretty much an abusive asshole without the slightest bit of dignity. Oh, Kurose was treated badly by her coworkers - how could they? Okay, then let's just rape her since she's helpless and we've nothing better to do at the moment. I'm not even sure how someone into dark hentai could enjoy it since she's literally just a puppet without any reactions - it's just dull. The only positive thing I could possibly say about it is that the characters and most of the backgrounds are rather well drawn. But that's pretty much it. *dropped* 2/10

Ah, I guess I just accidentally saw it leaked at that time then. I wonder if the same thing applies to Nora to Oujo to Noraneko Heart too, which was 'teased' some time ago as well, with dead silence surrounding it since then. Would really like to have clarity about that, since I'm about to buy the Japanese version.

1: Not really sure if I'm interested in that one. Currently I'm reading Palette's previous title Saku Saku and while the characters are overall better written than expected, the plot is just... dreadful. I find it generally difficult to motivate me for short cash grab moege's like Sakura or Nekopara series anymore, so I'll probably pass on this one. 2: Doesn't look interesting... 3: A real OELVN nukige?! Seriously? Art isn't so bad for an OELVN though... Still unlikely that I'll pick it up. 4. That's supposed to be a new announcement?! I'm pretty sure this title was already announced 1 - 2 years before. Anyway, seems to be more than just a simple moege, so I'll keep any eye on it. 5. I guess they just picked up the ongoing fan translation of Majo Koi Nikki? Seems to be a rather decent 'mystery moege'. Really curious how that one turns out, so I'll probably give it a try. 6. Not so much interest in gameplay titles. Must be something really special like an Eushully or Astronauts title to pick my interest. Or Ninetail's Gears of Dragoon, but noooo, they had to got for Venus Blood series... 7. I guess I'll try the first one after some clarifying comments that it's not a necrophilia festival. If that one turns out good enough, I'll pick this one up as well.

Well, I'm mostly happy that Jast is releasing the next chapter of Flowers. The other announcements don't really look that interesting. What's so special about Kimi to Kanojo to Kanojo no Koi btw?! Seems to be just another school life VN. Although judging by the description, it sounds a bit like a poor man's Subahibi. But I'm overall more interested in MangaGamer's and Sekai's announcements. I wonder if they'll announce yet another Rance title, since we don't already have enough waiting in the pipeline. It would also be nice if Sekai would finally announce when they are going to send their hard copies of Chrono Clock, since I'm still waiting for mine, and it's more than a year overdue now.